XXXII

  Elven Pride

  Leah stood up, already planning her escape.

  Eirwen’s eyes narrowed. ‘She’s from the Warden’s party.’

  ‘Ah, the mystery mage?’ the shimmer said. ‘How kind of you to come visit.’

  ‘Took a wrong turn on accident,’ Leah said. ‘You know how complicated these tunnels can get.’

  The shimmer chuckled. ‘She’s got humour, at least.’ He turned to the Ebonfrosts. ‘How about of you go home for the night? The cold air will help you cool off.’

  ‘What about the girl?’ Arnok said. ‘Questions will be raised if she goes missing.’

  ‘Questions that are for you to deal with,’ the elf said. ‘Our plans will continue as scheduled.’ His head tilted after both Arnok and Eirwen shot him a look.

  They said nothing, and the pair started in the direction they came from.

  Leah tensed. Should she take the Ebonfrosts hostage? Could she even take them hostage…? They were carrying a multitude of charms in the shape of those golems. No, she thought. Not possible. Not when the magus was staring at her like a predator.

  So she let the couple pass and watched as they ascended the stairs out and collapsed the ice structure behind them.

  ‘On another day, I would’ve invited you in for some tea,’ he said.

  ‘Would you?’ Leah played along, still thinking of what tools she had with her that she could possibly use. Nothing besides the cloak, really; she hadn’t expect anything besides a short trip.

  ‘Of course,’ he intoned, stretching the syllable as if he was giving her time to think on purpose. ‘You’re Xun’s get, aren’t you?’

  Leah stilled.

  Underneath the cowl, she saw the hooded curve of lips. ‘We go way back, Xun and I.’

  And now Leah scowled. Though Xun hid it better, his personality was ten times more horrible than hers. No one he knew from the past would consider him a friend.

  A sentiment echoed when the shimmer materialised an equally shimmered staff. ‘Do make this fun. I’ve been holed up here for too long.’

  Leah struck first. The lightning she had built up as slow as possible burst from her staff, arching through the air to the ear-deafening sound of the explosion. The force was so great the earth cracked where the thunder passed, kicking up dust and debris, and hiding the fate of the shimmer.

  Leah was already preparing her next spell.

  ‘Good,’ the elf said through the fog, coming from everywhere at once. ‘You’re careful.’

  Mana pumping into her legs, Leah vaulted away, protecting her flank with a hasty shield. The space she had occupied a moment before imploded, the air slamming together as if giant hands had crushed it between their palms. She powered her levitation spell, allowing her to hover in the air and see the battlefield from above. Her gaze roved over the clouds of dust and blackened rock. The shimmer was nowhere to be found.

  ‘Always look above you.’

  Her staff swung upwards to cast a barrier, but the shield was too hasty and too weak. The blow blasted through with ease, sending Leah flying face-first towards the ground.

  Levitate! she shouted the spell in her head. It softened her fall enough to not crack open her skull but only that. Leah rushed to her feet through sheer will, ignoring the spinning of the world. The fire lance bored through the ground not a second later. Steadying herself using her staff, Leah scanned her insides to assess the damage. It could be worse. Her nature spell was already firing, battling her concussion and allowing her to see straight.

  ‘You’ve got an excellent range of spells too.’ The shimmer floated down, settling upon the earth.

  Leah regarded him silently. Shimmers were but mental projections of a mage. They didn’t hold all their power. How much was in there? Less than half for sure. Forty was generous. Perhaps closer to twenty-five percent. That’s all he would have available to him.

  And yet I got my ass handed to me in that short exchange.

  She exhaled, her breath tinged with earth and roots. I have to outlast him, she thought, for if not her skill, it was her mana capacity she was confident in. Sepharin could attest to this.

  The thought of the woman she hated most made her reach into her pouch to produce a single core. ‘Summon,’ she chanted. The shimmer watched, smirking, as nothing happened. Leah frowned. ‘Summon,’ she said with more force this time. The crystal remained dormant.

  This fucking bitch! Leah thought. How come everyone and their damned mother could summon one of her dead, but when she needed it, it failed?

  The elf chuckled. ‘Your circus trick failed?’

  Leah tutted her lips, all but throwing the core away and taking her staff in both hands. She spun the wood in her arms, and air waves sent loose rocks around her flying.

  It would come down to herself to bait his spells. She smiled, reminiscing. Everything’s always come down to you, hasn’t it? Then her smile vanished and her face turned dead serious.

  ‘You talk too much,’ she said. ‘You stalling for backup?’

  The shimmer huffed. ‘Don’t mistake mercy for a flaw. Would you rather I end you in an instant?’

  ‘Try me.’

  The magus shrugged. His staff swept around him, leaving a blue trail in a cone in front of him. Spears and daggers and swords formed within, sharpened to a degree a master craftsman would chase their entire life. They launched to gorge Leah on a pike.

  Mana rushed through her. Winds buffeted from her staff as she pirouetted out of the way, redirecting the weapons so they dug harmlessly into the ground instead of her flesh and bones. The shimmer formed more, the blue trail now so big it covered any sight of the elf, and the dense cloud took the shape of a whirling sea of blades.

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  They rotated as one, pointing at her.

  The air around Leah exploded. She powered her spell to the max, weaving in levitate and shields wherever possible as she glided across the arena. She bounced of a wall, and blades dug themselves in up to the hilt behind her. One blade nicked her cloak. Some other drew blood from her cheek. She vaulted over another that would’ve pierced through her neck and landed in a crouch on a side wall, viewing the shimmer from above.

  Leah took off, sundering the floor underneath her. She flew at an angle towards the shade. Her staff struck out mid-flight, and shards of ice pelleted the shimmer’s position. Most of them were blocked by the sea of weapons, but some managed to slip through. None of them hit the mark, though. So Leah flew across the battlefield again, jumping from wall to wall, evading any serious injuries, and came back around for a second run.

  ‘That won’t work,’ he said, easily blocking the volley. ‘You’re not a donkey, are you?’

  She ignored him and prepared for what came next.

  Thick roots and vines burst out of the earth at the shimmer’s feet and shot out to ensnare him. He tried to jump away but was too late—vines latched onto his leg. His vision blurred, and the shimmer slammed into the ground. The bladestorm faded a moment later, buying Leah the space she needed.

  Leah grinned beside herself. ‘That’s courtesy of an undead witch.’ She landed upside down on the ceiling and pointed her staff at the ensnared shimmer. Lightning Cutter, she thought. Her weapon was unresponsive. For an instant. In that infinitely small moment, the lightning curled unnaturally inside the crystal tip, winding and coiling like a venomous reptile preparing a single, existence-ending strike.

  There was no sound, just a flash, for this was not natural lightning nor an imitation of it. Black was the thunder in the shape of a beast, its fangs piercing through the heart of the shimmer and into the floor, evaporating everything in its wake.

  Charred and broken rock tumbled past the edge of the platform into the glowing river below, the pungent air meeting Leah as she floated down, hair fluttering in the draft. Her tongue inched towards her cheek and licked the blood off.

  ‘You’re not unskilled.’

  The shimmer was standing on the opposite side of the arena. Unharmed. But he didn’t fool her eyes; his presence in the mana spectrum had decreased, so he must’ve healed his wounds.

  I can do this, Leah thought, touching the ground.

  ‘My master is talented,’ she said.

  ‘That he is. Xun was the most talented magician at the academy.’ The shimmer smiled. ‘But even great teaching needs a proper vessel. Girl, tell me, what family are you from? Are you a lost niece of a noble line?’

  ‘You flatter me,’ Leah said. Her mind raced. The same trick wouldn’t work twice, so what was her next move? ‘I’m a runaway from a human family.’

  A slow cackle escaped the elf. ‘A human family?’ The cackling turned maniacal. ‘Those barely-sentient monkeys don’t produce anything of worth. Don’t play coy, girl. You’re not human; not with skin so pale and hair that colour of gold.’

  Leah closed her eyes and solemnly shook her head. ‘This is why I hate elves.’

  The shimmer waited for her to speak.

  ‘You always think you’re above everybody,’ she said.

  ‘But we are. Our education is more sophisticated, our lives longer, and with our thoughts we comprehend what the other races have never dreamed off. That is why we protect them from us and not the other way around.’

  Leah’s palm gripped her staff so hard the wood nipped her skin. It was that very thinking that had left her stranded an orphan. That “We know what’s best for everyone”. That “We’re only doing this for your own good.” She thought of the young girl, then, the memory so vivid she could see the birthmark on the upper left cheek.

  ‘It’s so pretty! You’re like a golden sapphire!’ the squeaky voice came to her.

  A small smile followed it. There had been a time in Leah’s life where she hated recalling the girl whose name she couldn’t even remember. Especially because of what had followed their meeting.

  Nowadays it was just a nuisance.

  Leah released the breath she didn’t know she was holding, and emotions were driven out.

  ‘I can see our opinions, differ,’ the shimmer said. ‘No matter. Sooner or later you’ll understand.’

  Heat was gathering in her lungs. The fire-hot warmth entered her veins, coursing through her bloodstream and heating her entire body.

  ‘What a tremendous amount of energy,’ the shimmer grinned. ‘I thought you wanted to outlast me?’

  ‘There’s no need for extra risks,’ she said.

  His palm found his face as he laughed. ‘See? That right there’s elven pride. It’s not something a human can fake.’ He raised his staff. Light poured out and around it. ‘But as a sign of respect for you and your master, I’ll play along. Child of the Elves, should you weather this attack, I’ll let you go. I promise so upon my name as Theldaris.’

  ‘You sure you should be giving me your name?’

  He shrugged. ‘There is honour amongst our kind.’ His light-touched mana took the shape of a giant warrior of old wearing inscripted armour. The construct pulled back an imaginary bow, and a not-so imaginary arrow of pure radiance formed in its hands. Just looking at the weapon hurt her eyes and called a headache to the forefront of her mind.

  But Leah was calm. Flames gushed out of her staff into a giant sphere above her head that melted the very rocks she stood upon.

  ‘Supreme Art:’ she whispered, tasting flames on her tongue. ‘Auvrytt.’

  The arrow fired, the meteor descended, and the explosion rocked the world.

  Pain blossomed inside Leah’s head. Stars exploded behind her eyes and the world tilt crazily around her. There was a sudden impact, and she realised she had fallen. She coughed—she knew she was coughing but couldn’t feel her throat. She tried taking a deep, racking breath to clear her head. It didn’t work. So she just lay still, heaving, eyes closed in an effort to inspect the damage to her body.

  The clash of meteor and missile had seen the meteor split in half and the arrow broken into pieces. They didn’t lose their velocity but flew as a thousand needles, breaking through her defences, piercing her skin and lodging themselves into her bloodstream, where they interfered with her manaflow, stopping her from casting.

  I was naive, she thought. Overconfident. She thought she’d been calm but emotions had gotten the best of her after all.

  Around her, the ground sizzled and the platform fell apart. Broken parts tumbled into the river. The base of the pillar trembled. I need to get out of here. She blinked away the spots, found her staff, and used it as a cane to push herself up with herculean effort—

  ‘Well done.’

  A small sigh managed to escape her. The shimmer was meditating on the edge of the arena, near the entrance that would take her home. His lower body was missing. Though slowly reforming.

  His hand motioned to the side, and a crystal staircase formed between the platform and the entrance. ‘As promised, your freedom.’

  ‘You’re a gentleman,’ she said, limping by, the butt of her staff clinking on each step.

  ‘Ah, before you go, may I receive your name?’

  Her staff paused before hitting the staircase. Though she considered ignoring him and leaving, something deep within told her not to.

  ‘Leah Auvrytt.’

  ‘Auvrytt?’ his eyes roved over her. ‘You do look like him…’ But his gaze narrowed. ‘And someone else I know.’ He thought for a moment, appearing to realise something, and his lips tugged into a smile. ‘Be careful in the tunnels, Leah Auvrytt,’ his voice echoed in the cavern. Then he was gone like his shimmer had never been here in the first place.

  Leah huffed and continued up the staircase.

  Finding her way back was gruesome but not impossible. The mana traces she had left guided her footfalls, which grew more stable with each step, the blocking of the needles fading as they were pushed out of her system over time. She passed by a wall when a giant complication arose.

  Leah frowned. ‘It should be here,’ she said to herself, staring at rocks where there should’ve been a split in the tunnel. She could literally sense her mana beyond—

  The realisation struck as if she had walked into the wall full speed; while Leah was fighting for her life, the Ebonfrosts had collapsed the tunnels behind them. Had she not been almost as weak as a bed-ridden person, she could’ve maybe burrowed her way through. But she was far from the exit to Winterforge. Dislodging that much rock would take days. Days she didn’t have in her current state.

  I need to find another way out. She chuckled. For all she knew, that path was the sole one leading to Winterforge. If she ended up somewhere at the top of the mountains, she wouldn’t make the journey home.

  She sighed. It always comes down to you.

  So she travelled ahead, straight through the tunnel into the unknown—

  A horrible wailing bounced off the tunnel walls behind her, shocking her ears. Leah lifted the small globe of light she carried so her sight extended. It was enough to see a shadow flicker past the corridor to her tunnel, bounding into one of the other paths. Though it was quick, Leah had seen it. It was four-footed and had horns.

  She thought back to the magus’s parting words: ‘Be careful in the tunnels, Leah Auvrytt,’ and realised their meaning.

  The underground was the domain of devils. Demons were amok, and they smelled blood.

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